The effectiveness of video marketing and explainer videos was quickly noticed after they hit the scene back in 2009. Since then there have been various studies showing how video improves different areas of marketing. For example, increasing email click-through rates and so forth. But what about the area of PR? Can video result in more views of a press article? We did a little experiment with our friends at The Startup Magazine and it resulted in a 205% increase in page-views for an article.
The Experiment
We published two versions of the same article in Startup Magazine. One version had a video in it, and the word “video” in the title. While the other did not. The articles were promoted in the same way: automated social media posts with links to the articles. The title of the article was “The IoT Startups Changing the World” and the version with the video had a slightly modified title of “Video insights: The IoT Startups Changing the World”.
Here’s a screenshot below of the article overview as it appeared in StartupMag.
The video itself was embedded in the first paragraph of the article. Here’s the video below.
Here’s a link to the article.
The Results
The article with the video received 205% more web traffic (unique page views) than the article without. What does this mean? The result is interesting, but this was just one experiment. The internet can be a variable place we hope to have the opportunity to do more tests.
The Future of Video in PR
Publishers want more videos. Promoters want to put better content out into the world. So, we think it’s inevitable that video will increasingly be used more in PR. A barrier right now is the question of who is going to pay for it. Also, how do promoters create content in advance without knowing what publishers want? For their part, publishers are reluctant to post client content and want to post their own-branded content. We think that services to address those obstacles will emerge.
